![]() ![]() I was playing with Freestyler today and it turns out that it can receive windows API calls or UDP packets as control inputs. Such things need to be configurable as a global setting and not be something per light fitting. So I would prefer that the system could centrally decide to have a "night mode" at a particular time where everything is dim or biased to red. There is a temporal consideration too - for instance SWMBO is disturbed easily by hallway lights at night, and I am a typical night owl. Mainly because I want the switches to be able to configure the house for what we are currently doing rather than because we are in a particular place. I've considered my requirements in light of your post (pun intended) and concluded that I do want centralised lighting controls. Thank you That's just the sort of information I was looking for. Someone once said words to the effect "home automation lighting control industry is a mess" and this still very much holds. Most find DALI fits the KNX ethos better than dmx though (less centralised? More tunable white support?) but again that jacks up the costs.įinally, I think you can get DMX colour mix wall switches like but that honestly looks a mess and like it locks out all the benefits of home automation, but could be ok as a "get me started" choice. I found it more expensive than loxone, less appealing end result, and far far less inviting to self install (even with the loxone trend towards discouraging self install) but I know others have made this work for them. The elephant in the room is KNX, being standards based and open with a lot of light switch vendors supporting it, it should be the obvious answer to work with. But again if going that route I might forgo the DMX completely and just use esphome flashed onto Tuya based smart light bulbs and so forth. That needs internet access for setup and remote management, but otherwise should work on an airgapped network after a fashion. Non-loxone wise I think the options for DMX are either completely proprietary professional install (control 4, high end lutron etc) at which point the control protocol behind it is fairly academic to the user/owner, or completely home brew perhaps using something like Home Assistant and an ethernet to DMX bridge. To get value from it you at least need some motion sensors too, I'm using but with the noisy relays removed. Fwiw a minimal loxone install would be about £700 for a miniserver, 20 way Digital input, and a dmx bridge. Not sure I can help much for non loxone controls. The mains stuff I wanted CE marked ("Chinese Export" scam as it is) and enclosed, but low voltage stuff I'm increasingly comfortable buying the boards and squeezing into my own DIN enclosure. The triac mains dimmers have about 2W standby draw do to save on 30W of base load I power them off completely with a relay when unused, but the do judder a bit when powered up. The final one is a dmx splitter which is very useful to allow branches in the bus, and avoids power on noise interference between the branches. But in meantime these are the parts I used and happy so far (as in, they all appear to work) Starting 1st fix next week and currently panicking that my lighting design is inadequate/inappropriate/unimpressive and getting a professional designer to review and improve it so all subject to change! And real recommendations will need to wait 9 months until it's been in and used a while. I built up the LXN5 cabinet during lockdown part 1, 32channels of mains dimming and 48channels of LED 24V dimmers, plus some relays and options for constant current dimming. What else that supports DMX is out there? Preferably not involving wifi or anything that can't run properly on an airgapped network. I have bought a few DMX toys - a cheap USB interface and a few decoder boxes and had great fun making computer controlled LED strings using an old laptop - so I am happy with DMX responsiveness etc and it's not exactly expensive in the grand scheme.īut what ways are there to provide the human inputs so that normal people don't hate visiting? Loxone is an (looks good but very expensive) option of course, but it does seem to be going closed shop so I would prefer cheaper and more open if it's possible. I have just started to look at lighting control schemes and pretty much decided DMX is the most sensible standard because it's most unlikely to go away any time soon or be depricated at the whim of a single business. I have seen DMX discussed here before - I think it was doing an installation using Loxone controlling DMX? If this is correct, what DMX decoders did you use, and are you happy with them?
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